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Last Updated: Apr 30, 2008 - 11:18:25 AM |
Last August Russia revived its practice of sending out strategic bombers on
long-range patrols, and in February two Russian bombers over-flew the USS
Nimitz
carrier while it was on maneuvers in the Pacific, the first time that such an
incident had occurred in four years. On February 8, in a nationally televised
speech to the State Council, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his audience
that NATO’s aggressive tactics were threatening to unleash a new arms race and
that "In effect, we are forced to retaliate, to make corresponding
decisions. Russia has, and always will have, responses to these new challenges”
(“
O strategii razvitiia Rossii do 2020 goda” [About the strategic
development of Russia to 2020], http://www.kremlin.ru,
February 8). On April 22 eight member nations of the Commonwealth of
Independent States’ (CIS) Joint Air Defense Force conducted a massive Air
Defense System (PVO) exercise involving 110 aircraft and helicopters across the
breadth of the participating nations, with more than 10 missile, air defense,
anti-aircraft, and electronic warfare units involved in training exercises to
protect Moscow and the Central Federal District’s air space alone.
Deputy Commander of the Russian Air Force Lieutenant-General Vadim Volkovitskii
said, "Over 20 scenarios will be rehearsed, designed at strengthening the
air space of CIS countries--Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan" (RIA-Novosti, April 22).
The head of the Russian Air Force’s information and public relations department
Colonel Aleksandr Drobyshevskii said, "Over 110 aircraft and
helicopters--MiG-29 (NATO designation “Fulcrum”), MiG-31 (“Foxhound”), and
Sukhoi Su-27 fighters (“Flanker”), Sukhoi Su–24 bombers (“Fencer”), Tupolev
Tu-22 (“Blinder”), and Tupolev-95 (“Bear”) strategic bombers, Beriev A-50 Shmel
(“Mainstay”) AWACS planes, as well as Mil Mi-8 (“Hip”) and Mil Mi-24 (“Hind”)
helicopters are involved in the exercise" (Itar-Tass, April 22). Russian
Air Force Commander Colonel-General Aleksandr Zelin directed the exercise from
the central command post of the Russian Air Force.
The breadth of the exercise is striking, as it ranges from Central Europe to
the border with China and includes aircraft from Ukraine, a NATO aspirant whose
potential membership particularly infuriates the Kremlin. The exercise involved
a series of bilateral exercises. Russian and Kazakh MiG-31 interceptors
operated from Kazakhstan’s Karaganda airfield, coordinating aerial interception
operations with Russian fighters operating from airstrips in Tolmachevo and
Bolshoe Savino. Farther west, more than 25 Belarusian and Russian Su-24 and
Su-27 aircraft operating from Belarus facilities at Siverskiy and Russia’s Ross
airfield conducted joint exercises (Belorusskoe Telegraficheskoe Agenstvo,
April 22). According to Drobyshevskii, aircraft from the Russian Kant air base
in Kyrgyzstan also participated. Besides aircraft, Armenia contributed
personnel to the PVO command staff exercise training (www.panaorama.am, April 22).
The exercise took place two days after a Georgian reconnaissance Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was shot down over the secessionist territory of Abkhazia,
reportedly by a Russian Air Force fighter. Moscow strongly denies the charge.
Georgia's air force commander subsequently played footage for reporters that
allegedly shows a Russian aircraft downing the Georgian drone.
The operation is reminiscent of one held in April 2004, when 100 CIS aircraft
participated in a similar PVO exercise (
Rossiiskaia Gazeta, April 8,
2004). U.S. aircraft from the nearby American base in Manas, Kyrgyzstan,
shadowed the participating Russian fighters based in Kant. The 2004 exercise
was directed against a simulated terrorist attack, but with tension rising between
Russia and NATO, the recent exercise had a rather different emphasis.
Despite the public relations reports that the CIS PVO exercise went swimmingly,
there are nevertheless indications that Russia’s Central Asian military
presence creates local unrest in a similar way as the U.S. airbase in Manas,
Kyrgyzstan. On December 6, 2006, a U.S. soldier there shot and killed a Kyrgyz
citizen, leading to calls in Parliament to expel American forces from the base
(see
EDM, May 4, 2007).
In a fracas similar to the Manas incident, an encounter between Kyrgyz Interior
Ministry (MVD) forces and Russian soldiers based at Kant resulted on April 20
in Lieutenant Maxim Zotov being shot after a jeep carrying troops sped through
a stoplight. Zotov was wounded and sent to hospital with two broken ribs and
bullet wounds to his lung and spleen (www.regnum.ru,
April 24). Seeking to quell the media reports about the incident, the MVD noted
that “unfounded heightened speculation does not contribute to strengthening the
collegial and allied relations of Kyrgyzstan with the Russian Federation
against the background of the increasingly positive image of Russia in the
world and in CIS countries."
If the American pressure to expand NATO eastwards does not abate, then one can
expect to see additional CIS PVO exercises and, should Russia wish to burnish
its “increasingly positive image” with its neighbors, similar operations with
its Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) partners as well.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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